is 'suffolk pink' a modern concept?

[robgil]

just found this while looking into culford bricks.

This refers to the ‘washing’ or painting of the walls of buildings with plastered or rendered surfaces with coloured paint. Today this is done with modern masonry paints in a variety of colours, but in the past distemper or limewash were used. Distemper consists of whiting (ground chalk) mixed with size (weak glue) and water, while limewash consists of slaked lime and water. Both could be used uncoloured as ‘whitewash’ or coloured with pigments. Earth pigments such as red or yellow ochre were most common, giving a range of colour from cream through pink to red. Tales of the use of animal blood in colour washes are probably apocryphal, but sloe juice may have been used.

Documentary evidence suggests that, up to about 1900, most house walls were either left a raw ‘plaster white’ or given a coat of whitewash. There was then a gradual increase in the use of colours – firstly creams and pinks, with brighter colours such as lavender, orange and red being mentioned by the 1930s. By the 1970s there were authoritative statements about a traditional ‘Suffolk pink’ house colour. In part this might be confusion with ‘pinking’, a technique of decorating exterior plasterwork with lightly incised marks that is mentioned as being prevalent in north Suffolk in the 1920s. The commercial marketing of ‘Suffolk Pink’ as a colour has also undoubtedly been a factor in its perception as a long-established tradition.

A preservative brown staining used on weather-boarded barns and farm buildings is mentioned in 1783 and red-painted timber barns can be seen in John Constable’s pictures, such as his 1815 view of Golding Constable’s flower garden in East Bergholt. A red barn also features in the infamous murder of Maria Marten at Polstead in 1827. It is probable that these timber stains and paints were oil-based rather than washes. By the 1830s, it was an established practice to give timber-clad barns a preservative coating of tar and by the end of the 19th century black-tarred farm buildings of timber, clay-lump or clunch were a common sight in the landscape.

so , all these traditional pink houses are following traditions from recent history rather than how they might have been when first built?

this is actually quite an interesting read ,more so if you live in suffolk.

http://www.suffolklandscape.org.uk/glossary.aspx

 

[biffvernon]

Didn't we discuss the rural myth of adding pigs' blood to limewash a couple of years ago.

 

[Penners]

Didn't we discuss the rural myth of adding pigs' blood to limewash a couple of years ago.

Many times. Many, many times. (Except that people usually seem to suggest ox blood).

I have no idea whether it's historical fact or not. But here in Suffolk, it seems to be a ubiquitous view. It's also embroidered with a social status ingredient - if you were rich and could afford more blood, your house was a dark pink, but the poor folk had light pink houses.

But I've also heard it suggested that sloe juice could achieve a similar effect, but that it faded after a while.

 

[robgil]

so guys , do you think that painting a lot of these older houses pink is a bit like giving a morris minor a nice new and modern metallic paint job?

 

[Feltwell]

Didn't we discuss the rural myth of adding pigs' blood to limewash a couple of years ago.

Many times. Many, many times. (Except that people usually seem to suggest ox blood).

Quite right. Pigs blood is much better used in Black Puddings. Now you know why you never see a pink house in Lancashire :lol:

 

[Feltwell]

Back to the point - I'm not a huge fan of the pink masonry-painted houses in Suffolk, authentic colour or not the modern paints are just too bright and "plastic" for my liking.

If you could limewash it in a pink colour then that should be a much softer and more attractive finish. But, you've cement-based render at present haven't you?

I certainly wouldn't feel obliged to paint it pink (I presume it's not listed?) - but I think I'd just put up with it until you reach a point where you can sort the render out.

 

[robgil]

ive got no worries with the pink and as you say , lime wash will look way much better than the masonry paint it currently boasts. what i am more interested in is all these lovely old houses that have been told they have to be pink when in fact they may not have been painted at all originally. its kind of lying isn't it? these houses are being kept as original as possible then the most aesthetically visual thing about them may well be completely wrong. should there not be more research done to establish whether or not pink is authentic as ive now read several times that its quite dubious as to whether or not it is.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Write to Mr Thurley Rob, get this pink mystery sorted out!

The thing that is both wonderful and frustrating about history is that scant evidence can be twisted this way and that to suit your argument. As we can't really time travel, how can we truly know what went on - how popular pink was or how it was made? There will be evidence for all sorts of theories. I bet if you looked hard enough you'd find eminent historians who'd happily spend all night arguing about it.

It could well be rural myth or popular misconception that blood-pink cottages were widespread in Suffolk just as ignorant people think everyone dropped dead at age 40 in olden days or that the Victorians lived lives of spotless purity - truth is much more complex than people care to think about.

As someone who spends a lot of time batting with mysteries in my house I sympathise but think we have to accept that we won't find definitive truths - and that part of what makes living in a period property so fascinating is that very process of wondrous speculation about what went before. As Conrad so intriguingly said, "we come more and more to glory in a gap".

Right, rant over, lunch!

 

[Penners]

I certainly wouldn't feel obliged to paint it pink

No, of course not. In Suffolk there's a huge variety of painted rendering colours. And in the right setting, even a vivid clash of colours can look wonderful - see the picture of Bridge Street, Bungay, below.

But it all depends on the house, and on the neighbourhood, as to what looks right.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I'm not particularly enamoured of that - some of the blues in particular are very jarring - why can't they (as happens on the continent) agree a palette of colours and stick to them? The dead hand of good taste no doubt but it might help prevent this sort of thing:

http://www.edp24.co.uk/content/edp2...=xDefault&itemid=NOED09 Nov 2009 14:24:17:503

 

[JoceAndChris]

I also would have had a complete fit if I'd lived in one of those butter coloured houses and woken up to find one those others had turned blue. :shock: I like uniformity neatness and matchingness, but I think i miht have mentioned that. :lol:

Tis all in the eye of the beholder.

 

[Flyfisher]

Regarding "ox blood in the limewash", surely it would be relatively easy to confirm this by a suitable analysis of old pink limewash?

 

[Feltwell]

I'm with Penners - I think that street looks really nice for the variety of colours the house are painted (even if I don't personally like all the colours). If they were all varieties of beige and pale yellow it would look dull.

No rights or wrongs with aesthetics, only opinions.......

 

[JoceAndChris]

Well I think it significantly shows up what sorted chaps you and Mr P are!

It's the old conflict between Apollo and Dionysus, order and chaos, rule and riot. When one's inner life is chaos there is a great need for symmetry and order in the externalities - hence my disliking of the above picture. When one is utterly sorted pink and blue and buttercream just isn't a problem.

Now that might be deep, or just the effect of wine!

 

[philpjuk100]

Well I quite like the blues and even like the curry house,no paint job is "forever" unless it`s on unsullied bricks or timber,better a layer of paint than plastic windows or fake stone.On our annual trip to see my grandparents in north wales we used to pass a gatehouse which was always a different hue and on the journey upto that point we used to lay bets on the current colour.I don`t know if it was limewash or sandtex,didnt know about those things then (still at school) phil.

 

[Feltwell]

Well I think it significantly shows up what sorted chaps you and Mr P are!

Or perhaps it just shows that men are indeed lousy at co-ordinating colours!! :lol: Well, straight men at least!!

 

[philpjuk100]

I beg your pardon! Im straight and great with colours,phil(in pink sweater,green trousers and odd socks)

 

[Wren]

I agree with Penners. (And am also a fan of the mixture of colours you see in some North Norfolk villages.)

 

[TimM]

Yes and there are some lovely parts of the West Country, Scotland, Ireland, where the lack of any scheme is kind of the point (I much prefer the chaos of some of Bristol's brightly painted terraces to the splendour of all-doors-must-be-off-white Bath).

 

[Feltwell]

I beg your pardon! Im straight and great with colours,phil(in pink sweater,green trousers and odd socks)

You are the exception that proves the rule, clearly!